Tag: media

Courts outside the USA are increasingly uninterested in hearing the social media platforms assert that they are above the civil law:

Google has been ordered to pay $40,000 in damages to a Melbourne lawyer after a Supreme Court of Victoria ruling found the internet giant was a publisher, and had defamed the man. In today’s ruling, Justice Melinda Richards has determined that Google was a publisher, despite denials by the company.

The case centred on articles and images published by The Age newspaper in 2004, after Mr Defteros was charged with conspiracy over the murder of Carl Williams and other underworld figures.

At the time, Mr Defteros ran a legal firm in Melbourne whose clients included gangland figures.

The charges were dropped the following year, but Mr Defteros had surrendered his practising certificate for three years.

Mr Defteros argued that in 2016 and 2017, searches on Google continued to turn up articles and hyperlinks to web material that defamed him, including an entry in the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

During a trial last year, Google’s lawyers had argued it was not the publisher of the material and it had not defamed Mr Defteros.

It submitted that the automation of its search engines meant it was not an intentional communicator of words or images, particularly if a user clicked through to another website.

Justice Richards rejected this in her ruling today.

“The Google search engine … is not a passive tool,” she wrote in her 98-page judgement.

“It is designed by humans who work for Google to operate in the way it does, and in such a way that identified objectionable content can be removed, by human intervention.

“I find that Google becomes a publisher of the search results that its search engine returns to a user who enters a search query.”

She also found that providing the hyperlink within the search results “amounted to publication of the webpage”.

Unfortunately, they can still get away with their curated weaponization with complete impunity in the USA thanks to the federal laws that let them do the publisher-not publisher dance and state laws that let them use anti-SLAAP laws to impose costs on their victims.

BJ Campbell points out the statistical implausibility of the “wet market” theory of the coronavirus, not that anyone with more than half-a-brain ever bought it in the first place:

This thing came from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, probably the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We don’t need evidence gift wrapped by the Chinese to make this case. We just need simple mathematics, and the case is rock solid.

The “official channels” have maintained for four months that this virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan, not at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is the world’s Mecca of studying emergent SARS coronaviruses that originate in bats. A lot of speculation by the media has gone into supporting this case, as well as the solid support of the Chinese government, but the case is obviously garbage. I grant that wet markets for exotic harvested wild meats are a great vector for something like this, but set that aside for a moment.

There are between a hundred and a thousand wet markets in China. There are well over a thousand wet markets in Vietnam. There are well over a thousand wet markets in Thailand. There are hundreds or thousands of wet markets in Laos, hundreds or thousands more in Cambodia, hundreds or thousands more in Burma and Myanmar and Malaysia. Nobody knows for sure, but it’s completely reasonable to estimate the total number of wet markets in East Asia being at least ten thousand.

But only one of these ten thousand or more wet markets is two blocks from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The chance that a brand new never before seen SARS coronavirus variant would emerge at the only wet market two blocks from a laboratory whose primary function is to study never before seen SARS coronavirus variants, specifically from bats, is simply too astronomical to believe. If a brand-new world epidemic virus were to emerge every day from a wet market in east Asia, it would be three years or more on average before one emerged from Wuhan. No honest scientist would believe that coincidence given what we know.

The only real question is who arranged for its release there, as there are only three plausible state parties:  China, the USA, or Israel, and one non-state party, the Deep State. At this point, we have absolutely no way of knowing which of the four are responsible.

USA Today ran an article on prepping and mentioned Castalia’s own David the Good and his survival masterpiece.

Not everyone has the privilege of owning land, but even having a backyard can offer opportunities not available to apartment dwellers, like starting a garden or raising chickens. Many preppers even had remote “bug out” locations in rural areas perfect for social isolation.

If you had a time machine, you might want to go back in time and buy 50 acres, but your best bet now is to use what you have. Our supply chain is being stressed to its limits, and even if barren shelves are more a symptom of panic buying than an actual shortage, anything we can do to relieve stress on the supply chain will help. Spring is almost here, so now is the perfect time. You might need less space than you think: Steven Cornett in San Diego started his own commercial farm on a mere quarter of an acre.

Here are some resources to get gardening fast:

• Steve Solomon’s Gardening When It Counts, which is just what it sounds like.
• Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening. The late Mel Bartholomew wasn’t what you’d call a survivalist, but his intensive, low-labor method is as close as you can get in terms of a “gardening quick fix,” especially if you have easy access to water.
• David the Good’s Grow or Die: The Good Guide to Survival Gardening, which again, is just what it sounds like. David outlines the best crops to plant for survival, how to fertilize with your own urine, and even how to grow your own tobacco. His YouTube channel is a wealth of information.

You can pick up a paperback copy of Grow or Die at Amazon. Because this is the one book you do NOT want to have only in ebook.

A 40-year Wall Street veteran imparts the most important lessons he has learned from swimming in the swamp of fake capitalist corruption:

The same players who were bailed out then went back to what they do best. Too big to fail is now bigger, but with one crucial difference – the concentration of toxic risk remains in fewer hands and is enabled by Washington’s pay-to-play swamp. As corporate debt hits new all-time highs, balance sheets remain riddled with accounting fraud and enforcement hits all-time lows; we will soon see who is naked and it won’t be pretty.

Last autumn, I warned investors that Germany’s economy was falling off a cliff and was either in a recession or would be very soon. I cautioned that Italy’s debt is a huge problem and other member states and the rest of the world are not far behind Germany. Now in March, you can expect and will need to prepare for a full-blown economic depression.

Banks, politicians and governments will scapegoat Covid-19 to shift the blame for over 30 years of fiscal profligacy, loose monetary policies, fraud, and the lack of any proper regulatory enforcement away from themselves and onto anything or anyone else. Eventually, taxes will skyrocket to pay for these opaque bailouts, reckless spending policies, and record low interest rates during the past three decades.

Covid-19 presents an easy way to assign blame while forcing through “emergency legislation” allowing big government to implement 1984-style draconian social controls that will impinge and dismantle personal freedoms, liberties and democratic principles as they fleece taxpayers – again. If you think the 2008 recession and bailouts were bad, wait until you see how the greatest economic depression in history plays out.

This bubble has only begun to pop, and there are many more shoes to drop from this centipede before prices hit bottom. The downside will be significantly worse than the upside. Until leverage, valuations and corporate debt return to reasonable levels, stay clear. When these events do happen, we will see once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to create wealth. 

The two most important lessons I learned from my 40 years in international financial markets, lessons that can also be applied to politics and to life in general, are to never make any decision based on emotion or ideology and to never, ever trust the news. Today’s media are exponentially worse than they were in the 1980s and 1990s. They no longer provide news. What they provide are stories that are around 80 percent ideology and opinion,10 percent lies and spin, and 10 percent fact.

Keep your powder dry. Exploit the opportunities as they present themselves. And always, Always, ALWAYS critically examine every piece of so-called “news” with a highly skeptical eye.

The Roger Stone trial demonstrates how the Prometheans pervert the U.S. justice system:

Juror 1261, we now know, was Tomeka Hart. Her identity would have remained publicly unknown except for a public statement she made after the Department of Justice (DOJ) rescinded its initial sentencing recommendation for Trump confidant Roger Stone. In the midst of the firestorm of allegations of political interference, Hart disclosed that she was the foreperson on the Stone jury and gave a full-throated defense of the trial prosecutors: “It pains me to see the DOJ now interfere with the hard work of the prosecutors.”

That statement led many people to Google her name, and what they found was a litany of postings not only hostile to President Trump and his administration but also specifically commenting on Stone and his arrest — before she ever appeared for jury duty…. Hart is a Democratic activist and critic of the Trump administration. She was the Memphis City Schools board president. Not surprisingly, given her political background (including a run for Congress), Hart has been vocal in public on her views of Trump and his associates.

She referred to the President with a hashtag of “klanpresident” and spoke out against “Trump and the white supremacist racists.” She posted about how she and others protested outside a Trump hotel and shouted, “Shame, shame, shame!” When profanities were projected on the Trump hotel, she exclaimed on Jan. 13, 2018, “Gotta love it.” On March 24, 2019, she shared a Facebook post — no longer public — while calling attention to “the numerous indictments, guilty pleas, and convictions of people in 45’s inner-circle.”

More worrisome are her direct references to Stone, including a retweeted post, in January 2019, from Bakari Sellers, again raising racist associations and stating that “Roger Stone has y’all talking about reviewing use of force guidelines.” She also described Trump supporters such as Stone as racists and Putin cronies.

In addition to her prior statements about Trump, his associates and this case, Hart is a lawyer. That only magnifies concerns that any bias on her part may have had a more pronounced influence on her fellow jurors.

In fact, except for a jury pool composed entirely of House impeachment managers, Hart would appear to be a standout for a peremptory challenge by the defense team over bias. That is why the most surprising aspect of this story is not the review of her public statements but the review of her examination before trial. The brief examination in the voir dire hearing shows that Hart did disclose her ties to the Democratic Party. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson asked if Hart’s political history would prevent her from being fair, and Hart assured her it would not.

While Hart’s answers on the jury questionnaire remain sealed, Judge Jackson noted, “You’ve also indicated a fair amount of paying attention to news and social media, including about political things?” Hart does not volunteer that she did far more than “pay attention to news and social media” and was, in fact, an anti-Trump protester and social media critic.

The exposure of a jury plant demonstrates the same technique used in the media narrative, in town meetings, in political caucuses, in science propaganda, and every other type of collective activity in which the illusion of a majority consensus is required or deemed desirable.

As expected, YouTube followed up its demonetization of Nick Fuentes with a banning of his channel:

My Youtube channel has been wrongly terminated today for an alleged violation of “hate speech” policy. This is the end result of a concerted effort by leftists, conservative inc gatekeepers, and silicon valley censors to silence my show and the movement it has inspired.

This is why we build our own platforms. But never forget that it’s not our job to provide a home for everyone outside the mainstream. We will always help our friends and allies, but the enemies of our enemies are not necessarily either.

It will be interesting to see if Mr. Fuentes actually has the mettle his followers believe he does or if he will simply accept his banishment as meekly as the average conservative. I would tend to assume the latter, but perhaps he will exceed our expectations.

No matter how outlandish the conspiracy theory, it is almost always more accurate than the mainstream news reporting of the official story:

The real owners of Crypto installed ‘backdoor vulnerabilities’ in its products which allowed the US and West Germany to eavesdrop on communications — from enemies and allies alike — which the senders believed had been successfully encrypted. We’re talking here about  top secret communications between leading government officials, spies, diplomats and military figures.

Just imagine that back in the 1970s or 80s you had claimed that the Crypto was a CIA front. You’d have been dismissed as a ‘crank conspiracy theorist, ’and/or ‘totally paranoid‘ by the gatekeepers of that time. But the rumours were true. Once again a ‘conspiracy theory’ has turned out  to be not as barmy as once depicted. Truth again proved to be stranger than fiction.

How much intelligence was gathered via Crypto is quite staggering. As RT has reported: “Throughout the 1980s — around 40{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} of all government transmissions analysed by the US National Security Agency (NSA) ran through Crypto‘s devices.”

As I have previously observed, the one and only version of events you can be absolutely certain is not true is whatever the official story happens to be.

It’s not as if anyone will shed any tears for the McClatchy media empire. But it is worth noting that the process that is now all-but-complete with regards to the media is now taking place in the real estate market:

McClatchy Co. filed for bankruptcy Thursday, a move that will end family control of America’s second largest local news company and hand it to creditors who have expressed support for independent journalism.

The Chapter 11 filing will allow McClatchy to restructure its debts and, it hopes, shed much of its pension obligations. Under a plan outlined in its filing to a federal bankruptcy court, about 60 percent of its debt would be eliminated as the news organization tries to reposition for a digital future.

The likely new owners, if the court accepts the plan, would be led by hedge fund Chatham Asset Management LLC. They would operate McClatchy as a privately held company. More than 7 million shares of both publicly available and protected family-owned stock would be canceled.

The point that all the conservative and proudly “responsible” debtors have stubbornly failed to understand is that without a periodic debt jubilee, either a) the creditors will eventually own everything or b) the entire economic system will collapse. It is a mathematical certainty, given the way that debt pushes the demand curve up.

Cry all you want about how some irresponsible people may have gotten a better deal than you. Of course they will. That’s not the point. The point is whether you want to be doomed to life in a) the ashes or b) as a slave in your own lands or not.

Because those are the options.

The annoying thing is that no matter how many times people with experience like Stefan Molyneux, Mike Cernovich, Scott Adams and I point this out, almost everyone contacted by the media for one reason or another will excitedly take the bait, then complain that they were – surprise surprise – misrepresented, taken out of context, and attacked.

Whoever could have seen this ratings collapse coming?

Doctor Who is the need of a defibrillator as the show continues to have one foot in the grave as its latest episode is the worst viewed in 31 years of its 57-year history.

Sunday’s episode, “Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror,” was only watched by 4.04 million viewers in the UK.

We have to go way back to Season 23 of September, 1986 to see a lesser amount of viewers as “The Mysterious Planet” Part Four only had 3.7 million viewers tuning in.

Sunday’s episode of Doctor Who is also the eighth least-watched episode of the entire run which kicked off in 1963, and the lowest watched of the new series.

The numbers for Doctor Who have gone down consistently with each new episode as the series has lost near one million viewers since the debut episode for Season 12 on New Year’s Day.

As usual, everyone and everything will be blamed except the true culprit: the corporate cancer of convergence. Note that the usual drop of 20 percent in the first year has been achieved.